7/15/2016

Summer and a bit of rainy day folding

There is no way around it: summer is here, and today my vacation starts. It has been passionately longed for! We are heading South and hope for some hot, sunny days, but as our trip starts in the Tyrolean Alps, we'd better pack sweaters. They actually have gone below zero (nighttime!) in the past week. But the days are supposed to be warmer, and we will be going to Italy as well, and hope for the best. Here it has been cold lately, actually so cold that evenings are spent indoors - which feels crazy if you have a garden! But that is just the way Danish summer sometimes is, and that's that.

I have actually done some origami, something I rarely do much of in summer, otherwise. I have been wanting to try some slightly more complicated modular origami (like Klara here), and a while ago, I purchased a book by the queen of kusudama, Ekaterina Lukasheva. Anyone who has ever googled for origami instructions, has come across her. As her instructions seem to be very well made, and because I believe in supporting the arts (!) - I got myself one of her books from Amazon, to try these more tricky origami techniques. Kusudama are spherical constructions of many similar folded paper modules, that hinge or slide into each other in clever ways. The original meaning in Japanese, 'medicine ball' derives from the practice of filling them with healing herbs or incense, and keep them as health talismans around the house.

I checked out the beautiful book, and one rainy evening I decided to try to make this seemingly easy kusudama: a crocus. I went for the 18 units version, rather than the 30 units one - and just folding the basic unit gave me a bit of trouble. I struggled on, and some hour later, I had managed the so apparently simple unit, times eighteen. And then to assembly! Let me just tell you that I swore. I perspired. I sighed and polished my glasses, a lot. And I really, really tried. I even found a video on YouTube. After three hours I gave up (in the end I even sunk to the desperate level of using a stapler to keep the damned bits in place).

But I did learn something, as one always does, when things go to shits. I leaned that I had start with something simpler, and look for a kusudama model that didn't necessarily look 'easy', but had a different construction principle, and then I got to think aboutthese.I googled and found one that seemed to work a bit like them - and the pink 'Spiky Kusudama' you see in the picture, is the result, and my very first attempt. It was a brilliant beginners project (and only 12 units!!), so if you would like to try for yourself, follow this tutorial.